Equity and Inclusion

Martin Luther King Jr. Events

Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.

Each year, Edmonds Community College celebrates the life, work, and message of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. The celebration brings the community together through dance,
music, and inspirational speakers to encourage growth as culturally competent citizens
with understanding and respect for our changing community.

2015 MLK Celebration

Arts, Culture, and Civic Engagement (ACCE) thanks both campus and community members
for joining in this year's Edmonds Community College in the annual MLK Jr. Community
Celebration. We were honored to have Emory Douglas on campus!

Check out Emory's message on "Painting 'The World House' " here:

Keynote Speaker: Emory Douglas

The Black Panther Party for Self Defense remains one of the most controversial movements
of the 20th-century. Founded by the charismatic Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in
the fall of 1966, the party sounded a defiant cry for an end to the subjugation of
black people in the United States. As the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther
Party, Emory Douglas's political artwork articulated the party's messages of black
freedom. For close to five decades, Douglas has dedicated his life and art to social
justice. As a commercial art student at the City College of San Francisco in early
1967, Douglas used his talents to design props and sets for the Black Arts Movement,
which operated at San Francisco State.

In late 1967, he joined the Black Panther Party, and after several months, became
production manager of the Black Panther Party Intercommunal Newspaper until the party's
demise in 1982. Douglas's artistic talents proved a powerful force. His striking collages
of photographs and his own drawings combined to create some of the era's most iconic
images of the black power movement. From 1984 to 2005 Douglas worked as a layout artist
and graphic designer for the black owned Sun Reporter Publishing Company in San Francisco.
Today, Douglas continues to use his art as a tool to raise social consciousness of
injustice. With the publishing of his book, Black Panther: The Revolutionary Artwork
of Emory Douglas in 2007, Douglas has gone on to serve as Artist in Residence at Elam
International School of Fine Arts, in Auckland, New Zealand, as well as collaborated
on numerous public art projects across the United States, and around the world.

Resource Guide

The Resource Guide for Edmonds CC's MLK Celebration and Emory Douglas is now available
here: Meet Emory Douglas. We hope you find this useful!

Get involved!

There are many ways to participate in the MLK events and we encourage and welcome
our community to not only attend but to get involved! If you are interested in sponsorship,
volunteering, participating, attending, or want to partner in this celebration contact
one of our planning team members. We look forward to hearing your ideas and working
with you.